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| Backpack | 33.40 Miles |
2,580 AEG |
| | Backpack | 33.40 Miles | 3 Days | | |
| 2,580 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | For some reason i had never made it to Zion NP before. Took monday july 3 off from work and headed north with some friends for the long weekend. The plan was to hike Angels landing on Saturday and backpack The Barracks (Parunuweap Canyon) sunday to tuesday.
The hike itself was stunning although it took til day 2 to start seeing all the good stuff along the Virgin River. The first 7 miles are uninteresting hiking mostly along a Forest Road that leads to some private ranches. We left the cars parked at Mt Carmel and started our adventure from there. Our first wildlife sighting came in the form of a rattlesnake along the road, along the rest of the weekend we saw five dead deer carcasses, it was definitely an area with plenty of game.
Our camp 1 was at the confluence of the Virgin River and Mineral Gulch. Water levels were very low along Mineral gulch, at about 1 or 1.5 miles into it the water completely dried off. We made it all the way to 7 Arch, we found a cave with some petroglyphs and another wall with some faded petroglyphs too.
After coming back from our day hike we broke down camp and made it another 4 miles down the Virgin river after day 2 totalling around 23 miles.
At this point we had already entered the most stunning parts of the Virgin River but the last four miles were simply the best and quite possibly rivaling the beauty of other more popular hikes inside Zion NP. Being off the beaten path was great, we did not see a single person until about five minutes before finishing the entire trip.
Our exit point was a fun class III climb. Route finding and climbing skills are must haves when exiting this place. From there we followed a general direction north with the help our our topo maps and our GPS. It was hot and exhausting, make sure you do refill your camelbaks as we had two people in our group run out of water.
If you or anyone else is not able to get Narrows permits i highly recommend this hike, its well worth it. A total hidden gem. |
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